Asked to define and envision what the Green New Deal will look like, Chong states:

“If the climate crisis is defined as a problem where we need to move money from greenhouse-gas producing industries to non-GHG producing industry, then the answer is to move the money around. If the climate crisis is defined more broadly as a problem that also includes environmental racism, Indigenous genocide, and capitalism, then the solution is also going to be very different. ….When we talk about a Green economy, we do not want to replicate the inherent inequities we already have.”

The article also names the unions which support a Green New Deal for Canada: “Unifor, Amalgamated Transit Union, British Columbia Teachers Federation, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, and CUPE Ontario. The article concludes with a reference to the Private Member’s Motion on a Green New Deal for Canada, introduced in the new 43rd session of Parliament by Peter Julian, the NDP Member of Parliament for New Westminster-Burnaby British Columbia. His motion, introduced on December 5, defines a Green New Deal as a 10-year national mobilization to: • reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions • create millions of secure jobs• invest in sustainable infrastructure and industry • promote justice and equity for Indigenous peoples and all “frontline and vulnerable communities.” Specifically concerning GND jobs, it calls for :

……(vii) ensuring that the Green New Deal mobilization creates high-quality union jobs that pay prevailing wages, hires local workers, offers training and advancement opportunities, and guarantees wage and benefit parity for workers affected by the transition, (viii) guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all Canadians, (ix) strengthening and protecting the right of all workers to organize, unionize, and collectively bargain free of coercion, intimidation, and harassment, (x) strengthening and enforcing labour, workplace health and safety, antidiscrimination, and wage and hour standards across all employers, industries, and sectors, (xi) enacting and enforcing trade rules, procurement standards, and border adjustments with strong labor and environmental protections to stop the transfer of jobs and pollution overseas, and to grow domestic manufacturing in Canada…. More details are at the Our Time website ; Julian was one of the candidates endorsed by Our Time in Canada’s 2019 federal election.

The youth-led organization Our Time exists to campaign for a Green New Deal. An overview of their approach appears in “The future is in our hands— not theirs” in the January/February issue of CCPA’s The Monitor (pages 22- 23). Written by two Manitoba organizers from the Our Time campaign , it includes the youth-led actions of Canada’s Fridays for Future climate strikers, and focuses on the Our Time campaign in the West. The authors conclude: “Our Time and the CCPA-Manitoba recognize the need to build stronger relationships with the Indigenous community and beyond. We know that any struggle for a Green New Deal must take direction from those who are most dispossessed by fossil capitalism and most exposed to climate change. We do not wish to reproduce in our organizing spaces the undemocratic relationships of exploitation that have gotten us to this point. We need to unlearn the oppressive practices we frequently deploy, often unconsciously, even when our hearts are in the right place.”

Green New Deal proposals in the U.S.:

In late December 2019, Labor Network for Sustainability released its latest paper regarding the Green New Deal: a briefing paper written by Jeremy Brecher , No Worker Left Behind: Protecting Workers and Communities in the Green New Deal. From the introduction: “This paper aims to identify policies that could be actionable by GNDs at national and state levels.… It focuses only on: “GND policies specifically designed to protect workers and communities whose jobs and livelihoods may be adversely affected by deliberate managed decline of fossil fuel burning and other GND policies.” The document does not endorse one plan over the other – the purpose is to identify and inform trade unionists so that they can make their own determinations.

A broader discussion of the Green New Deal appears in Naomi Klein’s new article, “Care and Repair: Left Politics in the Age of Climate Change” in Dissent (Winter 2020 issue). Although the article focuses on the U.S. Green New Deal in a historical and political context , Klein continues to cite her “favourite example” of the GND as the Canadian Union of Postal Workers initiative, Delivering Community Power , which she describes as “a bold plan to turn every post office in Canada into a hub for a just green transition.” She continues “….To make the case for a Green New Deal—which explicitly calls for this kind of democratic, decentralized leadership—every sector in the United States should be developing similar visionary plans for their workplaces right now.”

Klein also repeats themes from previous writing, including :

“A job guarantee, far from an opportunistic socialist addendum, is a critical part of achieving a rapid and just transition. It would immediately lower the intense pressure on workers to take the kinds of jobs that destabilize our planet, because all would be free to take the time needed to retrain and find work in one of the many sectors that will be dramatically expanding…This in turn will reduce the power of bad actors like the Laborers’ International Union of North America, who are determined to split the labor movement and sabotage the prospects for this historic effort.”

Finally, her concluding call to action:

“The Green New Deal will need to be subject to constant vigilance and pressure from experts who understand exactly what it will take to lower our emissions as rapidly as science demands, and from social movements that have decades of experience bearing the brunt of false climate solutions, whether nuclear power, the chimera of carbon capture and storage, or carbon offsets.”

The Health and Environment Adaptive Response Task Force (HEART) is a group within the 8,000 member Canadian Federation of Medical Students . Its core purpose is to advocate for improvements in the medical curriculum to include the crucial links between health and climate and environmental change. In January 2020, HEART released Canada’s first-ever National Report on Planetary Health Education , meant to establish a benchmark on planetary health education in Canadian medical schools, and to provide schools with best practices and recommendations for improvements. Some of the practical examples cited: incorporating “the effects of air pollution with respiratory health teaching, discussing climate-related displacement within teaching on refugee and migrant health, and exploring the increasing burden of heat stress on health-care systems. Furthermore, case-based sessions can highlight the effects on specific individuals. Examples could include considering isolated older people at risk of heat stroke or of being in extreme weather events, or discussing the effects of flooding or poor water quality on Indigenous communities.”

The HEART analysis identified the University of Alberta, the Northern Ontario School of Medicine and Dalhousie University as leaders, “where environmental issues are covered at greater length through lectures, assignments and extracurricular opportunities.” The report is based on survey responses from “nearly 50 students” and 10 faculty members representing all 17 Canadian medical schools, and includes brief best practice examples.

In a November 28 press release, Ontario’s Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks announced the appointment of an Ontario Advisory Panel on Climate Change . The press release quotes the new Chair, Paul Kovacs who states: “The knowledge exists to prevent losses from flooding, wildfire and other climate extremes…. “Members of the advisory panel on climate change look forward to working with the Government of Ontario to champion climate resilience. Working together, we can break the alarming trend of rising severe weather damage to homes, businesses and public infrastructure. Action on climate resilience is a critical element of a comprehensive strategy on climate change.”

Members of the Advisory Panel come from a variety of sectors including non-profits, agriculture, insurance, and reflect the Panel’s focus on adaptation and conservation concerns. Neither green advocacy groups nor workers are represented. The brief bios of panelists are here : Chair Paul Kovacs is founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction at Western University; Vice-Chair Lynette Mader is the Manager of Provincial Operations for Ontario for Ducks Unlimited Canada and an expert on species-at-risk. The other eight Panel members include Blair Feltmate , head of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo and Chair of the Government of Canada Expert Panel on Climate Adaptation and Resilience Results.

Youth launch lawsuit against Ontario government

All of these negative findings won’t help the government as they prepare to defend themselves against a new climate change lawsuit by Ontario youth who claim that the Ford government’s softening of emissions reductions targets “will lead to widespread illness and death,” and thus has violated their charter rights under Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Seven applicants from communities across Ontario, ranging in age from 12 to 24, are represented by lawyers from Ecojustice and Stockwoods LLP . Details are in the Ecojustice Case Backgrounder; an overview of the action appears in the National Observer in “These Ontario kids are taking climate protest from streets to courthouse” (Nov. 26).

Just days after the federal election, on October 25, fifteen Canadians aged 10 to 19 launched a lawsuit in federal court, seeking a court-ordered plan for climate change based on the best available science. The plaintiffs, from seven Canadian provinces and the Northwest Territories, announced their suit in Vancouver at the Fridays for Future climate strike alongside Greta Thunberg and recounted their personal experiences, including asthma, Lyme disease, mental health challenges, and injuries from wildfire smoke.

The Statement of Claim in La Rose v. Her Majesty the Queen alleges that by failing to protect essential public trust resources like air and water, the Canadian government has violated the children’s right to life, liberty and security of the person under Section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It also alleges that the government has violated Section 15 of the Charter, since youth are disproportionately affected by the effects of climate change. A press releasefrom the David Suzuki Foundation includes quotes from some of the individuals involved; the case was widely reported in the following sources: the CBC , The Energy Mix , the National Observer, Toronto Star , and the Vancouver Star .

This is the second climate change case brought by Canadian youth: in 2019, ENvironnement JEUnesse brought a class action suit on behalf of Quebecers under the age of 35, which argued that the Canadian government was violating the class members’ fundamental rights by failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to ensure a safe climate. In July 2019, the Quebec Superior Court dismissedthe petitioners’ motion because it rejected the nature of the class , namely, the age limit of 35 years. The case is under appeal.

The children in La Rose v. Her Majesty the Queen are represented by the B.C. law firms of Arvay Finlay LLP and Tollefson Law Corporation, and supported by the Pacific Centre for Environmental Law and Litigation (CELL) , the David Suzuki Foundation, and Our Children’s Trust in the U.S., which pioneered the pending landmark youth case of Juliana vs. United States. Our Children’s Trust compiles information on climate change lawsuits around the world including Australia, Belgium, Columbia, France, India, the Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, the Philippines, Uganda, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at New York’s Columbia Law School maintains a database of cases in the U.S., and a separate database from the rest of the world – approximately 1400 climate lawsuits against governments and fossil fuel corporations in more than 25 countries.

A September blog published by legal firm Aird Berlis summarizes the July 2019 decision of the Quebec Superior Court in Canada’s youth climate change litigation: ENvironnement JEUnesse v. Canada. The environmental group ENvironnement JEUnesse also summarizes the progress of the case, which sought to represent Quebecers under the age of 35 in a class action suit, arguing that the Canadian government was violating the class members’ fundamental rights by failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to ensure a safe climate. In July 2019, the Quebec Superior Court dismissed the petitioners’ motion because it rejected the nature of the class proposed by the petitioners, namely, the age limit of 35 years. Lawyers for ENvironnement JEUnesse filed an appeal of the decision in August and await a hearing. The French-language decision is here; an unofficial English-language translation posted by Columbia Law School is here. ENvironnement JEUnesse sees itself as part of the global movement of climate litigation begun with the Urgenda decision in The Netherlands, and summarizes other cases around the world on its English-language website. The French-language websiteis much more informative – in addition to updates on the case, it posts news on the Quebec climate youth movement and its annual conference.